The koala, the cuddly marsupial of Australia, is in crisis. After their
population rebounded by the nation's efforts to save it from being hunted
to extinction in the early 20th century, their numbers have recently declined
sharply.

Mark Jenkins of National Geographic has the story of how Australians
like Deidré de Villiers are now racing to (re)save the koalas.
But first, she has to catch one and that's actually not as simple as it
sounds:

One morning not long after, de Villiers sets out into the scrubby
forest near Lake Samsonvale, northwest of Brisbane, to catch Tee Vee,
a wild koala the researcher has been monitoring for more than a year.
[...]

“I see her!” she says finally. A basketball-size gray
lump is clinging to a branch of an ironbark tree 50 feet or so directly
above.

Capturing a koala high in the canopy is complicated. First a giant
slingshot blasts a ball of string over a tree limb close to the koala.
This may require several tries. The string is attached to a climbing
rope, which is pulled up over the limb and tied off taut to the ground.
A 30-foot ladder is then set against the tree. Someone must scale the
ladder and inch up the rope, carrying a “flagging pole”
like a trapeze artist.

That someone is de Villiers, of course. Rigged out like a rock
climber, she scrambles up the tree, agile as a koala herself. Dangling
from a limb, she attempts to “flag” the koala, by flapping
a flag of plastic or fabric attached to the end of the pole above its
head. This annoys koalas, and Tee Vee starts shimmying backward down
the trunk.

But Tee Vee, as de Villiers says, “is an obstreperous handful.”
Halfway down the tree, the koala runs out on a limb and cleverly jumps
into another tree, starting the whole process over again.